


Off-Target

by TheUnicornFountain



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Zelda Wii U
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-02-21 01:03:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2449574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheUnicornFountain/pseuds/TheUnicornFountain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Link is having no luck with his archery practice when his friend Ganondorf arrives to provide a bit of instruction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Off-Target

**Author's Note:**

> This is a quick scene inspired by the _Zelda Wii U_ teaser shown at E3 2014. It carries my hope that Link and Ganondorf will start out as friends in the new game before becoming enemies, resulting in a more personal connection between Link and the game's antagonist beyond "good vs. evil". Of course, there is always that bloodstained thread of fate between them...

# Off-Target

With a _fwip_ and a _thunk,_ the arrow went wide of its target to embed itself in a tree trunk.

It had to be the unsteady footing. (He needed new boots.) Or the humidity. (It was summer, and the days wavered between hot and hotter.) Or perhaps the unfamiliarity of the bow. (Why was he doing this again?)

Excuse after excuse. That was what Ganondorf was always telling Link, usually around a laugh or a smile or a girl’s tit. _Just how many excuses do you have in those pouches that you’re so fond of carrying around?_

Link shifted on his feet and blew his dirty-blonde hair out of his eyes. Now because of his thoughts, he was acutely aware of the pouches hanging from his belt. Ganondorf didn’t understand. There was always some new flora or relic to pick up in Hyrule. Did he expect Link to carry it all in his hands?

“Stop it,” Link murmured to no one. He was alone on the archery range--an area of beaten-down dirt in the middle of the woods. Circular wooden targets, stained with inner rings of red dye, surrounded Link, taunting him from all heights amongst the trees. He fixed his blue eyes on one directly in front him at roughly chin height, on the other side of the archery range.

Link drew another arrow from the quiver at the small of his back and set the nock against the bowstring. The fletching whispered against his fingers, and the bow creaked when he raised it, drew back, and steadied his aim. The arrowhead--made small for practice--wavered in the middle of his vision. He played with closing first one eye and then the other; the arrowhead shifted to the left and to the right. What had Ganondorf said about aiming again? Link struggled to remember while the drawn bow drained his arms’ strength. 

Link’s grip eventually failed him as he mused; the arrow shot forward, driven by the bowstring. The fletching ripped his sleeve and tore a line of skin from his forearm as it passed. Link dropped the bow with a vehement curse. The arrow passed through a leaf, leaving behind a ragged hole that bled sunlight. Link never saw where it landed, as he was already bent over at the waist with his injured arm cradled against his chest.

Someone laughed. 

Link lifted his head and, with a jerk of his neck, tossed his ponytail out of his eyes. Of course it was Ganondorf. Link straightened up to look at his best friend properly. Ganondorf was a head taller and broader in his chest and shoulders, and he had darker skin and deep red hair over Link’s pale complexion and dirty-blonde locks. He was leaning against one of the trees on the edge of the archery ring. The shadow of an overhead target darkened his face further until he stepped forward into the forest’s green-filtered sunlight. 

“When did you get back? And how long have you been watching me?” Link asked. Ganondorf was always leaving the village to go off for days or weeks at a time. He never talked about these trips, but he sometimes brought back souvenirs or--more often--a new mystery in his yellow eyes. 

Ganondorf bent over and picked up the fallen bow, ignoring the usual questions to offer a simple, “Hello, Link.” He straightened up and made to offer the bow, only to stop when he noticed the crimson line staining Link’s sleeve. “Where are your bracers?”

Confusion mixed with the pain in Link’s face. “My what?” 

Ganondorf groaned and barely bit back a slew of curses. “I told you before that bracers will protect your arms. Weren’t you listening to anything I taught you before I left? No, obviously.” He cast a blatant look of dissatisfaction at the untouched targets. 

“Right,” Link muttered. He flexed the fingers of his injured arm; blood slickened the movement. Link gasped at the extent of the red flow. “Gan, could you…?”

Ganondorf shouldered the bow and gestured for Link to hold out his arm. His larger hands folded back the torn fabric, and his fingers marked an unseen symbol over the exposed wound. With a snap of sorcery, the blood slipped back across Link’s skin to return to the wound. Once every drop was restored, the ragged line of broken skin sealed itself up inch by inch, leaving no mark behind.

Link crooked his arm up and flexed his fingers again, this time with no sign of pain. “You’ve gotten really good at that.”

“I’ve had plenty of practice,” Ganondorf reminded him. A guilty smile touched Link’s lips for a moment. “Bracers. Now.”

Link sighed, turned slightly away, and kicked at a loose stone. “I forgot them.”

Ganondorf shook his head. “Excuse after excuse.” He returned to the tree where Link had originally caught sight of him. A rucksack was slumped against the tree’s trunk. Ganondorf loosened the rope binding it closed and dug around inside it. His hands reemerged with leather bracers, and tan sheaths marked with red and green lines. “Put these sheaths on first. The bracers are mine, so they’re a little big. You’ll need the extra cushion to make them snug.” 

Ganondorf slung the sheaths at Link, who caught them and slipped them up his forearms. The bracers were handed to him and he made quick work of the buckles. Naturally, Ganondorf made adjustments. Link bore the disapproving _tuts_ of Ganondorf’s tongue with habitual, albeit thin, patience. 

“Okay,” Ganondorf eventually proclaimed.

“On the Goddesses, _finally.”_ Link accepted the bow from Ganondorf and took out his third arrow of the day. He nocked it and drew the bowstring back, raising the bow.

“Hold still,” Ganondorf spoke up before Link could loosen the arrow. All at once, it seemed to Link, dark hands were at his wrists, shoulders, bow, and waist. They pushed and pulled, adjusting his stance and grip. Link didn’t have time to snap out an indignant protest before the hands dropped away. 

“Relax,” Ganondorf instructed. Link did so, loosening almost all of his muscles and allowing the arrow’s point to droop. “Now go back to how I had you,” Ganondorf said next.

Link couldn’t quite remember how to do that, so once again the hands shifted him into place before he was allowed to relax. The process repeated several times until Link could get into a stance without help that was to Ganondorf’s satisfaction. The on and off repositioning wasn’t kind to Link’s arms, but he pushed past the weariness. He wasn’t about to give up for the day after such a long delay.

Ganondorf moved up to Link’s left side as the slighter young man took aim. “A little higher,” he instructed, his eyes sighting along Link’s arrow. Ganondorf’s hand was large enough to encircle both the bow’s grip and its arrow rest. He steered Link’s aim up and to the right while his other hand kept Link’s back in position. “Keep both eyes open,” Ganondorf added when he saw Link squint his left eye shut. “Until you’re better at this, you don’t want to sacrifice peripheral vision for a cleaner shot. You can always take a second shot if time allows, but you won’t get that chance if you don’t see the person beside you come up to stab you in the back.”

An unexpected feeling of foreboding sent a shiver up Link’s spine. He relaxed his grip and shot a startled look to his left. Ganondorf looked back with raised eyebrows. “It’s nothing,” Link said, speaking more to himself. He turned his eyes forward and re-centered his aim, this time without Ganondorf’s help.

The drawn arrow shot forward seconds later. It clipped two inches off of a target before vanishing into the forest. It was a moment before Link realized he had hit the target. Ganondorf’s whoop of delight drove the point home. A grin tugged at Link’s lips. It came out full-force when Ganondorf slung an arm across his shoulders. His weight nearly bent Link over. 

“Looks like you’re of some use when you actually pay attention!” Ganondorf remarked, mirroring Link’s grin. If possible, he appeared more pleased than Link with the achievement. Link supposed a bit of his friend’s reputation had hung on the success. 

“Try again, try again,” Ganondorf encouraged. Link nocked a fourth arrow against the bowstring and raised the bow. “Ready your aim a little faster,” Ganondorf told him. “You won’t have time to dawdle in battle.”

Again that sense of foreboding. Link shrugged it off this time and centered his arrow. Two seconds later, it struck the target one ring away from the center. 

“Yes!” Ganondorf’s celebratory mood was infectious. Link hardly complained when his friend ruffled his hair with both hands, disheveling his ponytail and bangs. “I think you’ve earned it now,” Ganondorf said.

“Earned what?” Link asked. Ganondorf raised a finger for patience before he returned to his rucksack. What he pulled out was a slightly oblong object wrapped loosely in oilcloth. Link finished tucking his hair back into its tie and cast a curious but wary look at the object. Ganondorf’s souvenirs were sometimes strange. “What is it?”

“Something I salvaged from some ruins far west of here,” Ganondorf explained. He unwrapped the object as he talked. “I know how you like your defunct relics,” he added, smiling at Link’s frown, “but this one is actually kind of neat.”

The brown object--decorated with raised, gray swirls--vaguely resembled a closed fist. It was wide and round at one end with a short shaft extending from the other. An odd, thinner extension was tucked against the main body. Ganondorf handed the object over to Link and the young man’s blue eyes raced over every detail. He quickly found the cap at the end of the object’s shaft that, when flipped up, revealed a circular trigger. Ganondorf waited for the inevitable. He knew what to expect, but it still surprised him when the extension whipped out, nearly doubling the object’s length. A strange, crackling, blue light sparked to life along the extension, taking on the shape of an intricately carved blade.

Link almost dropped the object out of surprise. A frightened yelp left him before he regained control over himself. He studied the crackling light with growing fascination. The blue glow danced across his and Ganondorf’s faces, warping them into flickering masks of light and shadow. 

“What do you think?” Ganondorf prompted when he thought Link had had a deep enough drink of the object’s details. “Does it make up for all the weeks I was away this time?”

Link cast his eyes up at his friend; their color reflected the object’s light perfectly. He snapped the extension back down the next moment, killing the light. He grinned at Ganondorf’s look of question and dropped to his knees, taking out an arrow from his quiver as he did. While Ganondorf looked on, Link removed a leather lacing from his aging boots and used it to attach the object to the point of the arrow. The result was sloppy but effective, and the homespun look had a certain charm that fit Ganondorf’s friend perfectly.

Link straightened up once his chore was finished. “Let’s see what this can do.” He nocked the modified arrow, turned toward his earlier target, and raised the bow. Steadying his aim was difficult, as the object’s foreign weight repeatedly dragged his arrow out of its rest. It wasn’t until Ganondorf once more took hold of the bow’s grip with his broad hand that Link was able to stabilize the arrow. 

Link finalized his aim and prompted, “Gan, your hand…”

Ganondorf shook his head. “If I let go, you’ll be off your aim. I’m fine.” He smiled and repeated Link’s words. “Let’s see what this can do.”

It wasn’t easy for Link to put aside his concern (his mind kept wondering if Ganondorf’s inbred sorcery could fix a removed finger), but the allure of the object’s mystery helped. With his left hand, he flipped up the object’s cap and tugged its trigger with his index finger. The extension whipped out and bloomed its glowing, blue blade. Link waited until the blade’s shape had solidified before he released the arrow.

At that instant, Ganondorf jerked his hand away from the bow with a livid curse. Link had no time to spare a look for his friend. His eyes followed the arrow’s swift path to the center of the chipped target. The glowing blade went through the painted circle and underlying tree trunk with the ease of a knife through soft butter. The tree shuddered, and blue arcs of lightning sparked up and down its length. The tree’s leaves dropped as one so that for a few moments there was a ring of flitting green shapes that circled it. When the leaves touched ground, they shriveled and browned. The tree they had abandoned withered into a black twist of a trunk.

The birds that had so far accompanied Link’s archery practice fell silent. He and Ganondorf looked on, the latter sucking on a bleeding finger, as the last of the tree’s life left it. Link had taken a step back; his bow hung loose in his hand. It wasn’t until the birds resumed their songs did he walk forward to retrieve the arrow.

The object’s light was dormant once more. Link closed the extension and snapped the object off of the arrow. The broken shaft was abandoned at the base of the dead tree. He took several deep breaths before he returned to Ganondorf. “How’s your hand?” Link asked with a thin smile. 

“I’ve suffered worse,” Ganondorf assured him. He sucked off the last of the blood and healed the cut with more sorcery. “What about you? Are you all right? That thing… It’s something else, huh?”

Link looked down at the object in his hand. “Yeah, it is.” He used the loose ends of the lacing to tie it to his belt. “It’s probably best only for emergencies, though.” His voice had a preoccupied ring to it. 

Ganondorf dropped his eyes. “I’ll bring you a better souvenir next time,” he muttered. 

“Yeah, okay,” Link replied, still sounding distracted. He wouldn’t look at Ganondorf, and he shrugged off the young man’s companionable arm before taking the lead down the path back to the village.


End file.
